Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
All the entries posted on August 06, 2007.
Categories
Commenting is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F
More recent entries
- Mexico City eliminates checkpoints amid kidnapping fears
- A telenovela star helped me with my veggies
- Gruesome kidnapping leads to calls for Mexican death penalty
- Adventures in the land of the giant shrimp
- Small town suspicion
- More entries...
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | ||||
| More archives... | ||||||
Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2007 > August > 06
Monday, August 6, 2007
Majorly awesome: Mexico can’t get enough of Lorena
Mexico awoke Monday to one giant lovefest with golfer Lorena Ochoa, who on Sunday became the first Mexican golfer to win a major tournament. “Grand Goddess” thundered the sports section of the Mexico City daily Reforma. Ochoa managed to knock the opening weekend of the Mexican soccer league off the front pages of most sports sections, a feat almost as difficult as winning the British Open.
Why all the hubbub in a nation that can be accused of a lot of things, but certainly not of being golf crazy? Peruse the nation’s sports sections and you quickly learn the performance of Mexican athletes on the international stage means a lot to the national psyche.
Here in Mexico City, you won’t find many recaps of Major League Baseball games, but you will find daily updates on Mexican players like rookie phenom Yovani Gallardo (tearing it up for the Milwaukee Brewers) and the frustratingly inconsistent Oliver Perez (pitching for the New York Mets). Good, or even decent, performances bring banner headlines.
The same holds true for basketball. You might not be able to find your hometown scores, but you can count on daily stats for native son Eduardo Najera, the Denver Nuggets bench player and certified basketball god south of the border.
Ochoa seems acutely aware of the pressure and expectations her countrymen place on her, and her failure to win majors despite being ranked number one for most of the year was widely lamented here.
“I was playing for all of Mexico and hopefully [as a result] there will be many more Mexicans playing in the future,” Ochoa told The Times of London.